Thomas Lair said he had a lot of angels around him on March 26. It s a miracle I m alive, admitted Lair, who lives in Murrayville, a village in Morgan County, about 12 miles southeast of Jacksonville.
That afternoon, Lair was coming home from his job at Walmart when he failed to negotiate a turn onto Murrayville Road from U.S. 267.
Lair s 2002 Ford Ranger flipped â the dashcam from Murrayville-Woodson police officer Patrick McKinnon s patrol vehicle captured it â and the truck and Lair came to rest upside down in a ditch in a pool of water.
McKinnon, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who is still in training as a police officer at the academy in Springfield, sprang into action and was eventually able to break the driver s side window to extricate Lair, who had lost consciousness and had no pulse for between four to six minutes.